Never bad when I can work in a bad heart related pun to open up a post. I found a letter I wrote a few years ago. I’ve been sitting on a Valentines day post for quite sometime. But I’d rather use this because it’s much happier than what I’d previously written and as I promised, this will be mostly "nice"? However, love, the idea of loving unconditionally and being happy forever with another human being are deep and troublesome topics to write about. Out of respect for my readers who have found their soul mates, and those who think they’ll never find their soul mates, or even have one to begin with, I’ll shy away from talking about the institution of love, because I have many many thoughts, though none are concise enough for this entry. Rather I will just describe how Love should look as far as I’m concerned, and show you something it made me do one time.
Valentines day and any ritual centered around gift giving on the basis of love seems flawed to me. Love should make us want to do things without being asked to. If you can circle the date on the calendar in which you expect to receive some gift from a loved one and it’s not your birthday then my natural inclination is to try and trick you. In the past this has led to my week before deliveries, and also to my outright refusal to participate. You can imagine which of those days went over better than the other.
The other thing about Valentines day that disturbs me is that I think it unfairly emphasizes one time displays of affection over sustained acts of love and appreciation. One thing my ex could never understand was that by asking me to kiss her, or saying she wanted me to tell her I loved her, I inherently felt like I should wait but then make note to make sure I did or said those things more going forward. I understand people like the simple binary of asking and then immediately receiving. But for me it was more complicated when it came to love. I want to permeate the totality of someone’s experience with me with positive memories and good times. I can’t do that if I’m just giving of myself just when expected. Case in point, I have a complex about giving when you see it coming, it feels false, it feels fake, and I don’t like it. I'd sooner lie to you just so I can surprise you, than tell you the truth and give you what you expect. All that aside, in the future I’ll definitely work to go back to being more spontaneous with my love, and try not to be as predictable, I’m sure it was easy for you to deduce that outside of Valentines day I must have been getting requests for a reason.
Back to this letter of mine. It was unformatted when I saw it, I don’t think it was ever meant to be. All I said was…I love you, the way you are, when we’re not together.
I think it’s why friends can feel stress when they live together for the first time.
You’re so nice to me, when you only see me sometimes.
It’s like you’re fighting to make the space between now and the next time you see me Shorter.
You are more beautiful than I think even I knew. I’ve known you longer than we’ve been dating. But sometimes I swear I’m seeing you with new eyes.
Hanging out, you and I both, is some sort of vacation. What we say and what we do is hardly planned, but when we don’t it feels like we have to make up for lost time.
I laugh at you constantly, You amaze me constantly.
I don’t underestimate your ability, you’ve proven time and again you have no other plans but us.
I like the sound of that, the same way the drums in The Seed 2.0 sound right just as soon as you hear them. Matt Tong, ?uestlove, Dave Grohl Type drums. Soul shaking certainty.
You drive me crazy and I love it.
I honestly don’t know when I wrote this, it was probably during the summer of 2007. During this class I took on Love and Sex. Psych 399 I think it was? I was single at that time ironically enough, headed into what would be the most tumultuous summer I’ve ever witnessed, followed by the single worst Valentines day ever. I cannot imagine a more horrible set of circumstances but lets just say my date tried to change her flight back home within 2 hours of seeing me, and then at some point I threatened to make her sleep outside once I found out she actually HAD moved her flight up to 6 am the next day. Oh and then she changed it back again and we ended up spending the next 3 or 4 nights together. A very different 4 night stand than the initial one we had. WHOAH, I’m getting flustered just thinking about that. Yes for those of you counting at home, that's one trip home from the airport, 2 calls to the ticket office to change flights, $100 dollars in fee's to end up leaving the same day you originally planned to, and the true recipe for disaster. I was just weeks from my 22nd birthday then as well. I swear, my whole kingdom to the person who can send me back in time to fix that day, though I’d go back much further than that if I could. Goodness. I haven’t even begun to describe how bad it was, because as entertaining as it may be, it was fairly traumatic for us both, and I don’t think we came away unscathed. Even now I think just the nature of that day and all that happened, makes me wish it hadn’t. That relationship saw many bouts but that one was…wow, almost unspeakable. And I LIKE fighting. This blog is specifically here for me to air out my arguments. So yes it seems alien that these words and that relationship all came from one place.
Neither of them had any bearing on valentines day for me though. Love strong enough to make me that sappy, and hate deep enough to send a girl to sleep in an alley didn’t make me love or hate this holiday any more or any less. I find it just as flawed when I’m single (like today) as I do when I’m not single. Plain and simple. Love should be good on it's own, no holiday can help or hurt that. It's a bit addicting, Love is. Like Drake said, "I want this shit forever mayne." Pat Benatar said love was a battlefield though. Hmm?
I’ll leave you all with this message, don’t ever leave your love unattended. It’s not like an accomplishment you can attain and then sit back and marvel at. I’d liken it more to that scene in Avatar, when Neytiri is describing to Jake how he will know when he’s found the Ikran meant for him. “How will I know if it’s chosen me?” and her only answer is “He will try to kill you.” Maybe there’s something wrong with me but I think that is exactly how love should be.
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